For a market to be healthy long term in a figure of speech you need down turns like we are seeing, IMO all sectors of the beef business are in for some profitable years with the cow/calf leading the way. How many years is only a guess, but 3 to 5 could easily be achieved. Beef business has a lot  going for it, with the taste of the product being #1  out of a list of top 10 that i could easily come  up with .  Even with some on this board thinking we are over pricing our product and losing market share I believe even at today prices demand will out strip supply in the short term (2 yrs out)  , as debated many times on here until we see a sizeable expansion of some sort I can not see an enormity of the the cattle market happening.